Second time lucky! Just spent ages doing this journal enrty only to lose it...slightly annoyed you could say! This version may therefore be more brief than the one I intended!... We arrived in Xi'an the other day after a 14hr train ride overnight in a hard sleeper carriage. It wasn't half as bad as I feared and was comfy and clean which was the main thing! We were a bit disappointed that Xi'an is as polluted an smoggy as Beijing. It is so bad in China that you are able to stare directly at the sun and you don't go out in white! The hostel is better here than in Beijing and the most exciting part is the hot power shower! We decided to save some money and stay in dorms which has been fine. The hostle itslef is cool as it is set out like a traditional chinese home with courtyards and fish everywhere. There is a really nice bar which serves meals..we even had an american breakfast this morning! The first day it rained all day which is very ironic as we heard that Xi'an never rains and that is why the relics are so well preserved! We walked to The Drum Tower and to the Drum Tower which were cool. Next to the Drum Tower is the Muslim quater where there was a really cool market. If you were here on a short break it would have been eprfect to pick up some really nice antiques and trinkets but we jusr have no where to put them! Yesturday we paid to go on a tour to see the Terracotta Army...it was alot more expensive than the great wall tour which shows what good value that was. We went and saw some pretty cool things as well as the army, though it lasted 11 hrs in total so you feel you dont appreciate things as much when you are so tired. The Terracotta Army was so much better than I expected! It is amazing to think this was only discovered in 1973 by accident bu a farmer, who so happens to walk in the museum and has seem to have become another feature to the place! Every warrior was found in pieces and it took 8 yrs for them to remake them all...i'd never have the patience! They do seem to have a knack for ruining anything of natural beauty with big coach parks and tacky shops. It is also sad to see all the beggers. We had planned to get the train today to Guilin, famous for its misty mountains and riverways, but our hostel was unable to get us tickets...even on the black market! We were really looking forward to see more of the countryside but the infrastructure isn't in place to get to them which is a shame. Still a girl told us it was just like Vietnam so we arent going to miss out so much in the end. We plan to give ourselves an extra week in India. We are now getting the train to Shanghai tonight, a 18hr journey and fingers crossed we can change our flights at the STA Travel shop. China has been a good experience but I am looking forward to getting away from the pollution and the traffic from the big cities. China also seems to be one big building site at the mos so isn't so pretty. Im looking forward to the sun and heat of Oz!